Pages

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Episode Eleven

Tr'lia got used to the smells faster than she'd expected.
Her curiosity over Mr. Steen's specimens helped, kept her mind distracted,
focused. After the first day she learned to keep one eye on the cages at all
times, and now she walked with a permanent tilt to the head, with her neck
twisting to whatever side the wall and the banks of glass domes were on.

It carried over to home sometimes, and her parents had taken
to tsking when they caught her looking suspiciously at the walls. "It's
not becoming," her mother complained. "How will you ever find a mate
walking around with your head to one side?"

Tr'lia only fluffed at the reprimand and did her best to
keep work at work, but Mr. Steen had so much to teach her. He had plants she'd
never even heard of, and though she never lost her respect for the threat they
posed, her intellectual interest eased any fear she'd carried into the
chemist's cave. She studied the books he assigned late into the night, and
spent long days grinding his powders and learning to weigh and measure with
absolute precision.

Which should have distracted her from pining for black
feathers and a green crest. She had so little time to think, and yet, somehow
those moments when she could breathe filled quickly with ideas of P'rao, with
wondering what his work looked like, where he flew, and whether or not he'd
been sent into danger.

Working with the aerie chemist every day, her mind was often
focused on danger.

"T'rlia, child. Have you ground that violensis
yet?" The old quail's voice reverberated through the cave. For an aging
bird, Mr. Steen had a fair set of pipes. The acoustics in his laboratory vug
helped too, and T'rlia cringed at the volume and clacked her beak.

She'd had to learn not to use it for stirring or grasping, a
hard reflex to kill but one that could be fatal when dealing with the chemicals
they used. Her toes clutched the pestle and mortar of violensis powder, nearly
done, and her beak remained idle... also dangerous. The quail's fussiness got
on her nerves, and she didn't want to lose her job by talking back or arguing.

"Nearly done." She sang it to the back wall.
"Just a few more spoonfuls left."

Mr. Steen waddled to the front of his cave anyway. He stood
beside her while she finished, standing on one foot and then the other and making
a churring sound in his throat that set her hands to shaking.When she handed him the bowl of powder, he
focused one eye on it and squinted.

"Eh." His crest bobbled. "Nice and fine...
almost uniform."

Tr'lia knew better than to thank him. She'd had to stifle
that reflex as well, as any response to a compliment from the chemist usually
led to a lecture on the finer points that she'd yet to master.

"Do the bloomifer next. Medium grade, eleven grams and
not a grain more."

"Yes, sir." She bobbed her head and searched the
worktable and the supplies he'd readied for her day's work. "I-I'm not
seeing any bloomifer."

"Use the tongs." Steen called over his shoulder.
"Three leaves. Very carefully."

Tr'lia's breast fluttered. He wanted her to harvest them? The
quail's fat backside vanished back into his lab, rocking with his usual
trundling gait. If he suspected her hesitation, it didn't show. He'd given the
order matter-of-factly, as if she had been harvesting the plants directly this
whole time.

Was he testing her?

She plucked the tongs from her table and hopped off the
perch. She'd seen him do it, of course. He'd pointed out the steps,
demonstrated the technique and taught her ways to distract the plant while he
snipped a leaf here and there.

But she'd never opened one herself. Never been allowed to
touch the glass domes.

The cave floor felt gritty, covered in a find sheen of dust
particle s. Tr'lia's claws scritched at it as she hopped to the front most
portion of the cave where the banks of plants made a museum of danger and a
deterrent to any visitors aside from Steen's delivery men.

Those came at sporadic intervals, most wearing vests like
P'rao had worn. Tr'lia sighed and shuffled her way to the bloomifer domes. At
least he hadn't sent her for Violet Death. Those nasty plants all crowded to
the glass as she passed, tasting their walls as if they could get at her, a
threatening gesture and one she believed was intentionally so.

The Night Blooms had fewer tendrils, and the main stalk
shaped into a sort of indigo funnel. They had less mobility than the violensis
and primarily waited for things to happen along and fall into their open maw.
Tiny hairs lined that, assisted the descent of any bug or critter unlucky
enough to slip inside. The base of the funnel had a crown of fat whitish-green
leaves, and it was these that Mr. Steen would need for his powders.

Tr'lia used the long tongs to pry
the dome cap loose, but she left it in place while she reached for a vial of
fruit flies. Steen kept dozens of colonies of feeder insects. He'd shown her
how to distract the plant, how to shake the vial over the funnel mouth in
offering while her tongs robbed the plant of its treasures. He hadn't, however,
warned her about her nerves, about how her wingtips would shake and fumble.

She lay the tongs in reach beside
the enclosure and lifted the cap from the bloomifer's cage. Her other wing
tightened around the flies, but the vial still trembled in her grip. Instead of
shaking a few free, a wad of writhing wings and legs tumbled into the cage.
Only half of them landed inside the funnel. The rest dispersed instantly,
swarming over the leaves she needed, the damp moss, and soil substrate below.

The flies swarmed up the glass,
and Tr'lia scrambled to replace the top of the dome. Glass met glass, ringing a
low echo through the cave. The lid slipped, teetered on the cage rim and left a
winking gap to tempt the flies. All the while, the funnel's hairs rippled and
drew the few unlucky bugs down into the depth of the plant. Tr'lia still had no
leaves, the digestion wouldn't keep the plant busy much longer, and her grip on
the dome slipped and risked dropping the glass to the floor.

"Oh, tail feathers!"

"Easy." Out of nowhere,
a new voice answered her curse. A black wingtip reached from the cave behind
her to steady the teetering glass. "Got it."

"Thanks." Tr'lia took
advantage of the unexpected assistance and released the cap to the interloper's
grip. She snatched up her tongs and stoppered the flies' vial at the same time,
laying the latter beside the bloomifer cage and pointing the tongs toward the
cap. "Can you crack it, just a little?"

On command the dome lid slid, just
a fraction, to one side. She moved as quickly as her shaking wings would allow,
determined now that she had an audience. Tr'lia used the tongs to herd the
flies back down the side, then she plucked a white-green leaf and removed it,
diving back in as soon as she'd lain it beside he cage. Once she'd retrieved
all three of Steen's precious leaves, she nodded and let out an exhalation
laced with the last dregs of her panic.

"That's good. Thank you."
Her knees popped when she relaxed them. Her heart pattered, but the job was
done. She had three leaves and a safely re-covered cage... thanks to the
assistance of whoever waited behind her now. "I'm sorry, I..."

Tr'lia turned while wiping her
wingtips on her smock. She froze at the sight of the delivery bird, at the
sheen of his black feathers and the overly-amused tilt to his green head.

"P'rao." Her breath
rushed away with his name.

"I've got something for
you." His round eyes flashed with mischief, and his slender beak slid top
against bottom to punctuate the sentence, make the tone carry all sorts of
implications.

"You do?"

"A delivery for Chemist
Steen." P'rao snapped upright, stretched his milker's vest and waved one
wing in the direction of a new box waiting on the cave floor behind him.
"Priority package."

Again his beak ground out an
innuendo. Tr'lia's cheek feathers fluffed. She bobbed an answer, but her words
had formed a clay lump in her throat.

"Then," Pr'ao leaned
closer, brought his plumage directly into contact with hers. His beak hovered
beside her cheek, and his voice dropped down an octave. "I'm going to
search your aerie for the hen I'm in love with."

The blockage in her throat
shattered, came out as a choked cackle. Her feathers prickled from head to
tail, but Pr'ao only leaned nearer, drew the very tip of his beak through the
feathers on her neck.

"I don't suppose you can tell
me where she's hiding?" He whispered. "Because this is the last place
I'd expected to find her."

"Maybe." Tr'lia's voice
squeaked, and she had to swallow and start again. "Maybe she's waiting for
you somewhere... somewhere you're likely to turn up."

"Ah." He stepped away so
quickly that his body made a vacuum, pulled her in his direction so that she
teetered and had to spread her wings for balance. "Good thinking."

"What?"

The cave began to spin as he hopped
away. He paused for a second beside his delivery, just long enough to look back
over his shoulder and wink at her again. Then his eyes flashed, he dipped into
a too-formal bow, and leaped out of the cave.

Tr'lia swayed in place. What had
just happened? I'm in love with? Too
fast, and yet, her feet longed to rush to the cave mouth. Her beak wanted to
chirp for him to come back. When a green and black streak, flashed past the
mouth of the chemist's vug, her heart rocketed with it.

Pr'ao's voice called to her, far
too amused with itself. He offered one last taunt before he vanished again, leaving
her frustrated and completely in the dark. "Very good thinking!"